Playgrounds aren't just for kids

Or why diversity of shapes, colors, weather, sounds, smells, creates different feelings and therefore different moods in humans.

Fall in Sweden. Some people just love it, other says that this is the worse season in the year.

The low sun and the colors.. it does a lot for the mood.

A walk in this weather makes me happy into my heart.

Some leaves at a car, and the first frost that makes the color into another
color. Some tiny thing that you can see in an early morning.

In a city, we make, construct playgrounds to kids. But kids can also see the playground in a forest or just a small spot.

What is it that do the little spot- for them?

And what is it that is doing the little spot for an adult person, the spot where we want to sit down and enjoy a little?

Is it so, that we, adult people are a little more demanding what's good for us? Is it so that we need a diverse place to see, to hear, to smell? The little spot where we can recover a bit, is difficult to just create compare to the kids..

Here a playground in the tree.

There are green spots, large green areas with some grass on. We can do some sports like succer or we can have a party. But the little spot.. The spot that just creates the mood of "I want to sit down a little". What is it that makes it?

"To hear the leaves when they fall to the ground"

  "a stair with grass in every step"

In the book "Last child in the woods", Richard Louv discuss about how to save our children from nature-deficit disorder. But isn't it the same for adults? What's the name for it then? "Not enough nature and creativity in the outdoor environment"-?


A kindergarten with a lot of greens around. Some of the old buildings are there left as a wall. Old small trees makes the environment for kids to love.

An old old house in the fall season.

Do we build different for kids than for adult humans? I walked through a neighbourhood with their own restaurant and they also had a garden with a small greenhouse and a closure for chickens (with a rooster sign on the top).

The restaurant also had a terrace next to this garden. And next to the garden there was a forest on a hill. The balconies on the building was intergrating in this garden and it felt a little bit forbidden to be inside, as inside their place. A wonderful place to live. It was a rest home

A small lake with ducks and some people feed them. Here, some benches where you can sit down.

An old house in the forest of fall.

A pelvic in the grass land with some dead leaves makes a small ecosystem of its own. Do you see it?

In this spot, hundred years ago, a hospital was built for people with turbeculosis. It was built in the forest with this huge balcony where sick people could lay outside and watch the garden, green meadows and a water pool.

Nowadays a big green area with some trees and a lot of kids playing around.

When we build today. Do we think about people? Even if the people in the hospital was sick, the area was created for them. A wonderful area with water, flowers and fresh air. The house and the pool still remains. Around the area, kindergarten and children are running and playing at the meadows. The plan is now to rebuild the building to apartments. Will the green area and the spot of diversity stay here?

Adult people also want to have a place to "just be" for a while, isn't it so? Outside in the summer, inside in the wintertime, but a place where we can rest, sit down and have all the impressions that we humans need to feel happiness. No?

Playgrounds aren't just for kids. Every human needs a "playground" to play a little with the senses, to feel human.